this post was submitted on 30 Jun 2025
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Strong Last of Us 2 vibes.
That game had such an interesting setup and completely fucking fumbled every single second.
The idea of a split story arc where two hurt people are hunting one another for revenge and how it devastates the both of them in the end is so cool, but then it's written with the emotional intelligence of a five year old and completely fucking missing the concept of subtlety and earned pay offs. Everything is forced, everything is overly mean spirited to the point where you just kinds hate everybody and roots for no one. You're literally forced as the player to torture and kill several people and animals throughout the game.
And when you finally get to the climax there's a lame as fuck "revenge is bad mkay" message tagged on to the end. It rings hollow and it isn't earned. Such an immature script trying to tackle such an interesting concept.
It really shows you that there are no bad ideas, only bad execution.
"You should feel bad for utilizing these gameplay mechanics we designed the game around. You monster!"
There is a good version of that.
Spec Ops the Line is art. You don’t have a “choice” to not use the white phosphorus if you are going to play - but just like Heart of Darkness and Apocalypse Now - no one needs to be there/participating to begin with.
As much a commentary on the complicity if the general culture and specific medium it comes from as the military type guy you're playing.
One of my favorite aspects is the way the ludonarrative/gameplay ties with the story.
spoiler
The enemies start showing up in unrealistic numbers, one of your dead squad mates shows up as some kind of mutated monster - it feels like the classic escalation in difficulty because you are playing a video game. But this is happening because your character is delusional and perceives it that way.I’ve always wanted to teach a high school/community college elective where we read Heart of Darkness, watched Apocalypse Now and played Spec Ops - to see how the same narratives in themes are used in entirely different settings and with different methods of storytelling, but how ultimately they all reach towards the same message about humanity and war and cruelty.
The older Call of Duty’s (maybe the newer ones, haven’t played since Black Ops one) often had messages/quotes that were pretty anti war when you died, but were ultimately sabotaged by the story. Spec Ops is probably the best game at understanding how to use the FPS mechanics as part of its storytelling.
Sooooort of. I read 'heart of darkness' when i was way too young, but 'apocalypse now' and 'spec ops: the line', while similar, are clearly biting at different targets.
Where the central theme of 'apocalypse now' might read as 'there is no civilized war, it is only ever madness, and to believe otherwise is not only madness, but incompetence. You play as children at heroism, and it is a lie. There are no heroes here. Not on your side, at least.'
'Spec ops: the line' could be read as 'what the fuck is erong with you people? Why do you even do this? What the fuck is even in it for you?' With literally the first scene being the implicit 'you've heard this story before, we both know you have, no part of this is new to you. so why the fuck are you so god damn stubborn about not fucking getting it?' Scolding less the pissed off 19 year olds who do the atrocities, and more the entire society that keeps allowing them to be so staggeringly violently stupid.